STAFFORD RODE AS A STEADY SOLDIER

Del. C. Jefferson Stafford, R-Giles, who died last week, was not a political giant as the world reckons such things, but to those who were privileged to know him, he will always be regarded as a man well worth admiring.

A stranger's first impression of Stafford might have been that here was a typical Southwest Virginia good ol' boy, and it's true you could cut his mountain twang with a knife. But appearances can be deceiving. Here was truly an intellectual ideologue who had carefully calibrated where he stood and why.

Stafford's understanding of politics was instinctive, but it was also based on a deep knowledge of history and economics. His considerable intellectual power might be measured by his success as a champion of tournament bridge. To play that difficult game well requires not only a prodigious memory and the ability to visualize the probable arrangement of cards you cannot see, but also the capacity to formulate in a few seconds a successful strategy of bidding and play. In that sphere he was among the very best.

His prowess as a politician was best demonstrated in a losing campaign for Congress in 1984. In the mists of that distant past, it was not yet thought an act of lunacy to challenge an incumbent member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

It takes no liberties to say he regarded 9th District Rep. Rick Boucher as the embodiment of the virus of the Leviathan state that Stafford saw as the ultimate destroyer of the American experiment in self-governing democracy.

The "Fightin' Ninth" had been a hotbed of Republicanism when the rest of the state had little use for the party of Lincoln. But the district had changed, and Stafford understood that. He knew the poverty and despair that had settled in many places, and the temptation of a formerly self-reliant people to see the federal government as their savior.

But he still resolved to contest that election on grounds of a profound difference in political philosophy. He lost narrowly, but he organized the most credible challenge to an incumbent we have seen in recent years. And he did it on ground somewhat hostile to his basic message, which might be summarized this way: "Government can give you nothing which it has not first taken away, and you will do better in the long run to repose trust in yourselves, your local communities and a free market."

It is not my purpose to make Jeff Stafford seem larger in death than he was in life. But the life that late he led does contain important messages for our time.

While his skills as a lawyer might have earned him more munificent fees elsewhere, he followed the advice that Booker T. Washington gave, "Put your bucket down where you are." Pearisburg in Giles County might be small and a bit off the beaten path, but Pearisburg had bred him, and to it he owed the best of himself. Death found him there as life had found him, going to Ruritan dinners and sharing coffee, news and jokes with the regulars at the cafe on courthouse square.

Jeff Stafford believed that the greatness of America was more likely to be found in the common sense of the common people. In the shifting tides of American politics, the vitality and influence of the small places may be drained away. But Stafford had a vision of this state and nation that he believed was worth fighting for, and fight he did, though not as a demagogue riding the cause of the moment, but as a steady soldier of what he saw as the well-found verities of our long national experience. To say he will be missed is an understatement.

* Ray Garland, a Republican, is a former member of the General Assembly from Roanoke.